Andrew Rens

Unblocking Intellectual property rights

So, what's the big idea?

Andrew was Intellectual Property Fellow for the Shuttleworth Foundation from 2007 to 2010. He was also Legal Lead for Creative Commons South Africa, a co-founder and director of The African Commons Project, charter member of Freedom to Innovate South Africa and a research associate at the LINK Center. After teaching at Wits Law School he was a fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

A renowned speaker in his field, Andrew has delivered addresses at the Second Conference on Access to Knowledge at Yale Law School, Digital Citizens Indaba at Rhodes University and the National Science and Technology Forum. He also writes on access to knowledge, the commons and intellectual property and is an avid blogger.

Andrew Rens's flash grant nominations

Twice a year we award a number of small grants to a collection
of social change agents, no strings attached, in support of
their work. We call these Flash Grants and recipients are
selected based on nominations from our Fellows. Each award is
worth $5,000.

Spend breakdown

At the heart of our co-investment fellowship model is the
principle that Fellows continue to invest in their own
ideas. The Foundation amplifies the Fellow’s investment by
matching it at least tenfold, along with covering the cost of
their time for the year.

The figures you see here do not reflect each Fellow’s
fellowship year funding, but rather the funds unlocked within
our financial year, as the fellowship years start either March
or September and Fellows are not required to spend the
available funds proportionately throughout the year.